Alexander Outlaw ANDERSON

(1794-1869)

Senate Years of Service:

1840-1841

Party:

Democrat

ANDERSON, Alexander
Outlaw, (son of Joseph Anderson), a Senator from Tennessee;
born at “Soldiers’ Rest,” Jefferson County,
Tenn., November 10, 1794; attended preparatory schools; graduated
from Washington College at Greeneville, Tenn.; enlisted in the War
of 1812 and fought in the Battle of New Orleans; studied law in
Washington, D.C.; admitted to the bar in 1814 in Dandridge, Tenn.,
where he practiced law; later moved to Knoxville; superintendent of
the United States land office in Alabama in 1836; government agent
for removing the Indians from Alabama and Florida in 1838; elected
as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy
caused by the resignation of Hugh L. White, and served from
February 26, 1840, to March 3, 1841; was not a candidate for
reelection; leader of an overland company which went to California
in 1849; member of the State senate in 1850 and 1851; supreme court
judge of California 1851-1853; returned to Tennessee in 1853; later
practiced law in Washington, D.C., before the Court of Claims and
before the Supreme Court of the United States; during the Civil War
moved to Alabama and practiced law in Mobile and Camden; died in
Knoxville, Tenn., May 23, 1869; interment in the Old Gray
Cemetery.

Bibliography

McKellar, Kenneth. “Alexander Outlaw Anderson,” in
Tennessee Senators as Seen by One of their Successors.
Kingsport, Tenn.: Southern Publishers, Inc., 1942, 222-230.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present